STAUTOCP - Start Automatic Character Prompting

Use the STAUTOCP macro instruction to start automatic character prompting. Automatic character prompting signals the terminal user when the system is ready to accept input from the terminal. This signal consists of displaying at the terminal either an underscore and a backspace or a period and a carriage return, depending on the type of terminal being used. The STAUTOCP macro has no effect with a display station, because the terminal user is always prompted for input by the start-of-message symbol.

This macro instruction can be used to cause the system to automatically prompt the user for input.

Once started, automatic prompting is handled as follows: When the system has received a line of input, it immediately sends back to the terminal the next character prompt. If the program should send output while automatic prompting is in effect, the prompt will be repeated after all output has been sent to the terminal. For example:

line of input
OUTPUT MSG FROM PROGRAM

Automatic prompting is designed to be used by a program operating in input mode (that is, issuing successive TGET macros).

The system suspends automatic prompting when the terminal user causes an attention interruption or enters a null (nonprinting) line of input. The application program then takes appropriate action in an attention exit routine, or after receiving a zero length input from the TGET macro instruction. The application program can stop the prompting or line numbering function by using SPAUTOPT, or can restart the function via STAUTOCP.

The STAUTOCP macro instruction can be used only in a time sharing environment. It is ignored if issued by a batch task or if the program is running under Session Manager.

Figure 1 shows the format of the STAUTOCP macro instruction.

Figure 1. The STAUTOCP macro instruction

[symbol]      STAUTOCP

When control is returned to the user, register 15 contains one of the following return codes:

Table 1. Return codes from STAUTOCP
Return code dec(Hex)	Meaning
0(0)	Successful.
4(4)	A parameter was specified. No parameter should be specified.